Drive to cut the wait for cancer care gets results

WAITING times for treatments and test results for cancer sufferers have improved dramatically in a targeted group of hospitals.

However, while the special projects showed that improvements could be achieved in less than a year, cancer services elsewhere have shown little improvement, said a report published yesterday.

Prof Gordon McVie, director general of the Cancer Research Campaign, said: "What the report shows us is the level of inefficiency that exists in the health service. What these units have achieved is excellent, no question. But you look at the starting points and know that the situation definitely still exists in other parts of the country. This initiative needs to be rolled out now to all the cancer centres."

The report by the Cancer Services Collaborative, released by the Department of Health, shows the effect of 51 projects in which doctors and managers worked together. In Birmingham, waiting times for results for bowel cancer fell from eight weeks to a maximum of 14 days.

In west London, waiting times for patients with possible breast cancer was reduced from up to 11 weeks to the next available clinic. In Leicestershire the practice of making patients go to hospital three times for bowel cancer tests has been reduced to a single visit.

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Prof McVie said the study had shown "shockingly long" waits for cancer care. He said: "You would never see waits like this in the private sector. Results of tests are on the doctor's screen the same day. It has revealed some appalling baseline results.

"Things will not get dramatically better until the 600 new cancer consultants appear and 600 new nurses. We need new pathologists and radiologists. We are grossly under-resourced after years and years of starvation in cancer care." He said 10,000 lives could be saved over four or five years if these were in place.

Yesterday Alan Milburn, the Health Secretary, announced an allocation of £87.5 million over four years for stomach, pancreatic and oesophageal cancer to reduce the 18,000 deaths a year. A further £20 million is being spent on heart disease with the money mostly being invested in GP surgeries.

Speaking at Newcastle General Hospital, where he unveiled a machine to treat cancer, Mr Milburn promised to make NHS cancer and coronary care treatment among the best in the world.He said: "For years and years the NHS just did not get the investment it needed. We are putting that right."

Dr Liam Fox, the shadow health spokesman, accused Mr Milburn of hypocrisy. "Mr Milburn said the big problem was capacity yet only two weeks ago the Nurses' Pay Review Body report said there was no case for a special pay response on grounds of recruitment and retention."

The NHS could be wasting tens of thousands of pounds a year because of the Government's apparent failure to recycle expensive disability equipment for the elderly, researchers from Bath University have found.

Wheelchairs, Zimmer frames, crutches and walking sticks, which cost the NHS and local authorities about £400 million a year, are stockpiled in nursing homes.